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CONTRABANDS AND VAGRANTS. 



Newport, R.I., July 23, 1861. 
Dear Sir, 

We have never, heretofore, exchanged 
letters ; not, I am sure, from any want of 
mutual good feeling, but simply because no 
special reason made a correspondence ne- 
cessary. 

At the present moment, the case is dif- 
ferent ; and it is the duty of every citizen, 
however situated, to contribute his mite, 
however small, to assist his country in her 
day of trouble. 

The result of the present conflict can 



^ CONTRABANDS AN]) VAGRANTS. 

hardly be doubtful, notwithstanding our 
present reverses : but when the Federal 
troops shall hereafter have full and quiet 
possession of the Border States, and the 
power of secession is thus far wiped out, 
the struggle is not over ; the end is not 
yet. 

I take it for granted, that, in the Free 
States, the baneful effects of slavery on our 
institutions, habits, and morals, are now so 
evident, that the people, grown wise by 
experience, will with unanimity vote to re- 
peal that portion of the second section of 
the first article of the Constitution which 
relates to representatives and taxation; and, 
under the leading vote of Congress, will 
limit the power to hold persons to service 
or labor, in any of the States, to the present 
living generation of slaves. 

The Constitution, being so amended, will 
make its provisions more in accordance 



(d3TJ 



-2c5/ 



CONTRABANDS AND VAGRANTS. 3 

with the spirit of the age, and the moral 
convictions of twenty millions of people. 
And certainly the people have now a right 
so to amend it, to suit themselves ; the se- 
ceded States having voluntarily thrown off 
their allegiance, and declared that they will 
not live under the Constitution as it is, 
will not amend it or reconstruct it, and are 
in open rebellion to get rid of it. 

But the most vicious of these States, now 
commonly called the Gulf States, are the 
least capable of self-government, and have 
few of the necessary ingredients to make a 
nationality. Separated from the United 
States, they are nothing, and, in all essential 
matters, must be subject to it ; nor is it at 
all improbable, that, after the lapse of a few 
years, they will finally pray to be re-ad- 
mitted to the Union, even with the amend- 
ments above named, which may at the 
time be a part of its Constitution. 



4 CONTRABANDS AND VAGRANTS. 

Is it not, then, wisest for the United 
States, when she has brought the Border 
States under control, to cease from further 
hostilities on land, and consolidate her rule 
by the Congressional action above named, 
and satisfy the Border States by the enact- 
ment of a law for the gradual emancipation 
of slaves, based on the plan suggested in 
the letters to the Hon. John Quincj Ad- 
ams, and herewith enclosed? 

The proposal may be offered after the 
liquidation of the cost and charges of the 
war, and as a compensation to those States 
in which the laws and Constitution of the 
United States are the ruling government ; 
but open also, on the same terms, to the re- 
maining outlying States on petition, and 
acceptance of the amended Constitution. 

The following synopsis of the plan for 
emancipation, proposed by me, many years 
ago, to the Hon. John Quincy Adams, then 



^ J^- 



CONTRABAISDS AND VAGRANTS. 



a member of Congress, gives a sufficiently 
clear view of the process of action to serve 
as a foundation to commence on under ex- 
isting circumstances. It was prepared by 
some writer in New York, on his own re- 
sponsibility, and, I believe, had a con- 
siderable circulation. It received my ac- 
quiescence and approval. 

But, before proceeding to suggest any 
amendments of the Constitution, the proper 
move is to carry out the action proposed by 
Major-General Butler, in his late communi- 
cation to the Secretary of War, dated a 
few days since, relative to " contrabands 
of war," and slaves fleeing to us for pro- 
tection. 

The general order subjoined, properly 
drafted, might be immediately issued from 
the War Department to the several mi- 
litar}^ commands in the service of the 
United States, and arrangements made for 



6 CONTRABANDS AND VAGRANTS. 

suitable depots in selected parts of the Free 
States, preparatory to the issue of billets 
by their several executives. 

General Order. — When fugitive slaves 
come within your lines, or when slaves are 
seized by your men, as contrabands of war, 
while working for the rebel forces, they 
are to be marched to the nearest depot 
provided for the purpose, and thence, un- 
der proper regulations, distributed among 
the Free States, in the ratio of their popula- 
tion ; to be billeted by authority of the 
State executives upon the inhabitants, free- 
holders, as domestic laborers, as follows : 
viz., males between ten and twenty years 
of age, and females between six and twenty- 
five years of age, to freeholders in the cities. 
These household laborers, of whom not 
more than two are to be billeted on any one 
family, are to be employed in light labor, as 



^3^ 



CONTRABANDS AND VAGRANTS. 



cooks and chambermaids, and in other in- 
door-work ; and are to be returned to the 
order of the United States at the end of the 
war, if not previously disposed of among 
the freeholders, in accordance with their 
several hopes and wishes. 

Persons of a more mature age may be 
billeted on the farmers in the Free States, 
and especially on those of Pennsylvania, 
Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as farm-laborers; 
and elsewhere on request of freeholders. 

If some such measure is carried out by 
the Administration at the proper time and 
in proper places, the strength and spirit of 
the rebels will be paralyzed, their counsels 
divided, and our arms triumphant. It af- 
fords, also, a practicable stimulus to a final 
adjustment of our difficulties : for the ex- 
perience of every day renders it more mani- 
fest, that the Gulf States cannot be brought 



8 CONTRABANDS AND VAGRANTS. 

back willing and faithful members of the 
Union ; and they must, therefore, be re- 
duced in every way, and their means of of- 
fence crippled, until necessity produces a 
sounder judgment, and conviction follows 
administrative weakness. 

The Cabinet, so supported and encou- 
raged by the people, will go forward with 
double power; and, wdiile by the above 
course the rebel is properly chastised, the 
loyal citizen, under the emancipation plan, 
will be honored and rewarded. 

The following is the plan for a gradual 
emancipation, before alluded to, published 
in New York, 1857. It may be of use as a 
form of compensation to be applied to the 
Union men of the South. 



zs^^ 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION; 

Published in New York, 1857. 



There has been so much said and published 
on the subject of Emancipation, both at the 
North and South, that it has become some- 
what difficult to discuss it without awaking 
party interests and feelings. The best 
cause, as is well known, may be ruined by 
injudicious advocates. The people of the 
South, however, cannot but approve of 
candor and truth ; and we feel confident 
that they will be pleased with the Hon. 
David Sears's safe and liberal propositions 
on the subject of gradual emancipation, 
advocating, as they most clearly do, not 
only a full indemnity for every slave libe- 



10 PLAN FOR A 

rated, but presenting no impossibility or 
serious difficulty of execution. 

Some of the extracts from the letters of 
Mr. Sears seem almost prophetic. 

Before presenting our readers with the 
substance of Mr. Sears's plan for emancipa- 
tion, we insert the following petition in its 
support, which, we understand, is now in 
circulation for signatures in this and seve- 
ral other of the States : — 

" To the Senate, and House of Bepresentatives, of the 
United States of America. 

" The petition of the undersigned, citi- 
zens of , respectfully asks, that you will 

consider the expediency of endeavoring to 
effect such a change in the Constitution or 
Laws as shall appropriate the public lands 
of the nation in aid of the extinction of 
slavery throughout the Union. 

"Also the expediency of appointing com- 



^3S- 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 11 

missioners, whose duty it shall be — under 
such conditions as Congress may deter- 
mine — to purchase and emancipate slaves, 

being female children born prior to . 

And also of making annual appropriations 
by law for the purpose, on a pledge of said 
public lands, with a declaratory act, that 

from and after there shall be no 

hereditary slavery; but that, on and after 
that date, every child born within the 
United States of America, their jurisdiction 
and territories, shall be born free." 

In one of Mr. Sears's late communications 
on the subject of emancipation, when giving 
statistical facts in relation to it, he says, — 

" The last census of the United States 
gave 420,000 as the number of female 
slaves under ten years of age, and 390,000 
as the number of female slaves between 
the ages of ten and twenty years. The 



12 PLAN FOR A 

plan proposed contemplates the purchase 
of one or both of these classes, at a price 
to be agreed on. It is estimated, that, at 
their present average vahie, they could be 
bought and emancipated at a cost much 
less than the expense of the last war of the 
nation with Great Britain, and for less than 
the probable cost of the late Mexican War.''' 

A summary of the plan is as follows : — 

1. Congress to appropriate the proceeds 
of the sales of public lands to the extinction 
of slavery. 

2. Commissioners to be appointed by 
Congress to negotiate with the Legisla- 
tures of the Slave States for the purchase 
of female slaves under ten years of age, 
and also, if necessary, female slaves under 
twenty years of age ; and with instructions 
to close a contract with any one of said States 
which may agree to accept the terms of 



Z3C 

GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 13 

their commission. The money to he jMid to 
the States, and to be by them apportioned. 

3. Female slaves so purchased are to be 
free, and their issue are to be free. 

4. In consideration of the above, all chil- 
dren born after are to be free, within 

the States so contracting; and, from that 
date, hereditary slavery in the United States, 
its territories and dependencies, is to cease. 

5. In order to avoid the difficulties and 
dangers which might arise from an im- 
mediate and unqualified liberation of a de- 
based and ignorant class, I have suggested 

that children who may be born after 

should be apprenticed to their owners 
or others until they are twenty-one years 
of age, on the proviso that they receive 
from their masters a suitable education 
to fit them for their improved condition. 
And this is to apply to all children born 
after that period, whether their mothers 



14 PLAX FOR A 

have been freed by appropriations made 
by Congress or not. 

The spirit of Mr. Sears's plan of emanci- 
pation is contained in the above summary. 
In our own judgment, we have arrived at a 
conjuncture in which the wisdom of our 
greatest statesmen is required on this 
subject. The present scheme transfers 
the burden from the slaveholder to the 
nation. Thousands at the North will be 
found to aid in the accomplishment of a 
peaceful emancipation, even to the extreme 
of self-denial and sacrifice. Mr. Sears's 
plan has not been prepared under the 
influence of any sectional or party feeling. 
The warmest advocates of the present 
state of things must be satisfied of this, 
after reading his excellent and judicious 
letters on the subject ; as they show most 
conclusively, that the evil can be gradually 



a 27 

GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 15 

abolished without detriment to their rights 
or interests. We invite the attention of the 
press and our public men to the considera- 
tion of the plan proposed. May nothing 
cloud the prospect of the nation's coming 
to a speedy, united, and happy decision ! 

A late number of the " Norfolk (Va.) 
Herald " contains the following remarks of 
its candid and truth-speaking editor : — 

" Let those who are lured by the prospect 
of gain, or who really believe that they 
can better their condition by emigrating to 
the nevA' States, follow their bent, and take 
their slaves along with them ! The vacuum 
may cause a momentary weakness ; but it 
will be only to recruit with twofold vigor. 
The place of every slave will, in time, be 
filled with hardy, industrious, tax-paying, * 
musket-bearing freemen, of the right stuff 
to people a free State, — wliicli Virginia 
is destined to he, one of these days ; and 



16 PLAN FOR A 

the sooner [consistently with reason), the 
better for her own goodJ' 

This is cheering intelligence from such 
a quarter. The people of Western Vir- 
ginia, whose prolific mountains and valleys 
encourage the growth of the spirit of free- 
dom, have long wished to be rid of slavery; 
but the people of Southern Virginia, more 
unfortunate in location and association, 
have hitherto successfully repressed this 
Western sentiment. If, as would appear 
from this paragraph from the " Norfolk 
Herald," the true character of slavery, as a 
ruinous absorbent, is beginning to be felt, 
there is indeed hope of Virginia. 

That it would be " better for her " if sla- 
very were abolished in Virginia, there can 
be no reasonable doubt. Slavery is, and 
always has been, an incubus upon the 
prosperity of that State. Her originally 
rich soil has become barren and fruitless 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 17 

under the exhausting and improvident till- 
age of slave labor : the once prolific plan- 
tations are bankrupting their proprietors. 
To thousands the unpleasant alternative is 
presented, of abject poverty at home, or 
emigration to the new soil at the West. 
Large numbers have chosen the latter, and 
their places have been filled by farmers 
from the North. They, schooled in the 
science of agriculture and inured to toil, 
can with free labor restore what slavery 
has exhausted. Under their judicious ap- 
plication of this free labor, Virginia would 
soon be lifted from her present condition ; 
and, when this truth shall be felt and acted 
upon,the" Herald's" prediction will become 
matter of history. 

With these and a multitude of similar 
facts before them, will not the intelligent 
and reflecting people of the slaveholding 
States take into serious and candid conside- 

2 



18 PLAN FOR A 

ration the plan devised and recommended 
by Mr. Sears for the removal of the originat- 
ing and operative causes, which, as long as 
they continue to exist, cannot, according 
to the apprehensions of the wisest men 
who have lived in the Southern States, 
fail of being deeply injurious to their 
present prosperity and happiness, and of 
being instrumental in placing invincible 
impediments in the way of their future 
advancement in science, literature, the 
arts, in wealth, and in every thing else 
which can justly be deemed promotive 
of an increased degree of safety, comfort, 
civilization, and refinement? 

We more cheerfully make these re- 
flections, from the well-known fact that 
such illustrious men as Rufus King, while 
United-States senator, and more recently 
the distinguished Henry Clay, have boldly 
and honestly expressed similar sentiments. 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 19 

The terms proposed are liberal. Mr. Sears 
remarks, "We would manage it, if possible, 
so as to gain the approbation of the most 
interested, and be prepared to meet them 
on terms of mutual concession for com- 
mon preservation. Compensation must be 

MADE FOR EVERY EMANCIPATED SLAVE, and 

an obnoxious feature in the Constitution 
removed." Now, if our Southern friends 
would meet the demands of this proposal 
fairly, manfully, in due season, and in as 
kind a spirit as animates the author of the 
plan alluded to, the one great trust devolv- 
ing on the men of the present generation 
in this country would be accomplished ; 
and, in ages to come, their posterity would 
bless them. 



In order to present more clearly the 
views and sentiments of Mr. Sears in rela- 



20 PLAN FOR A 

tion to his proposed plan for emancipation^ 
we give the following extracts from his 
correspondence on the subject with the 
late Ex-President, John Quincy Adams : — 

"We believe that the interest as w^ell as 
happiness of the whole Union requires the 
abolition of slavery. But in this belief we 
would be careful to let neither prejudice 
nor passion nor wrong govern us. We 
desire, therefore, that some proposal may 
be made, to show to the intelligent and 
thinking part of the South, that, in the 
adjustment of this matter, the rights of 
property are to be sacredly respected ; 
some mode 'adopted to satisfy them that 
our intentions are honest; some evidence 
given that we act under a conscientious 
conviction, that on it depends the quiet 
and duration of the Union." 

" To avoid the inevitable result of an 
open outbreak, it is necessary that there 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 21 

should be a united action in the Free States, 
with the adoption of some great principle 
which shall unite us all." 

"In this view the enclosed principles are 
framed. They are independent of party, 
and leave every one free to act on all 
minor questions ; being united only in this, 

tliat^ from and after , tvery child horn 

in the United States shall he horn free. 
This great object we earnestly seek to 
obtain in a reasonable way, and upon prin- 
ciples of right and justice. We would 
manage it, if possible, so as to gain the 
approbation of those most interested, and 
be prepared to meet them on terms of 
mutual concession for common preserva- 
tion. Compensation must be made for 
every emancipated slave, and an obnoxious 
feature in the Constitution removed. But 
it is not necessary, in attempting this, to 
touch the argument, that a certain interpre- 



2^ PLAN FOR A 

tation of that instrument would perpetuate 
slavery to all generations unborn; nor to 
show, that, by such an assumption of con- 
struction, the State of Virginia and her 
Southern neighbors — while the traffic is ex- 
pressly forbidden elsewhere — are virtually 
made another Africa for the supply of slaves, 
and have a monopoly of the trade. Such 
irritating topics may be put at rest. It 
is best to appeal to the interest of the 
slaveholder to convince him. It is pro- 
posed that he should be paid for every 
slave that is emancipated ; and that he 
shall have the labor, during their lives, 
of such as are not purchased. He is, in 
fact, deprived of nothing which has ex- 
istence, or in which he can have property. 
No pecuniary sacrifice is exacted ; the 
expense of the infancy of children being 
paid by indenture with their mothers, who, 
being purchased and made free, may bind 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 23 

them to labor, as we bind our apprentices 
and an honorable opportunity is thus of- 
fered to the slaveholder to test the honesty 
of his democratic principles, and Ids regard 
for human rights, without danger and with- 
out loss. The moral tone of the slave is 
raised by the brighter future, and parent 
slaves are induced to behave well, and to 
work hard, in the knowledge that their 
children will be free ; all tending to the 
benefit of the owner." 

" No proposition like the present has 
ever yet been made to the South, nor re- 
muneration in any shape offered. Let us 
try it, in the spirit of conciliation, to save 
them and ourselves from a great, a com- 
mon, and an impending calamity." 

" These views I have strongly urged ; 
and I have endeavored to impress on the 
minds of our friends the necessity of unit- 



24: PLAN FOR A 

ing on the subject of compensation, for the 
sake of union, happiness, and peace." 

" It certainly appears to be a matter of 
great importance, especially to the three 
States (Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky), 
to look closely into the subject, and ex- 
amine the proposition tendered to them. 
They are Border States, and in contact 
with a spirit of freedom ; and, while they 
are becoming comparatively less rich and 
strong, they cannot but see that their 
neighbors, divided from them only by an 
imaginary line or a small stream, are ra- 
pidly advancing upon them in wealth and 
strength. Nor can they deny that these 
consequences follow, on the one hand, from 
the institution of slavery; and, on the other, 
from the institution of free labor.^ The 

* What a volume is contained in the following contrast ! 
and yet this is only a fair statement of the difference be- 
t ween' a Slave and a Free State: — 



Xi/t 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 25 

former must ever yield to the latter in 
the production of wealth, prosperity, and 

FREE SOIL. — MASSACHUSETTS. 

Has Territory 7,500 sq. m. 

Population in 1845 800,000 

Products in do $124,735,264 

Production to each Individual $154 

Cost of State Government, 1844 $461,097 

Members of Congress 10 

Scholars in Common Schools 160,257 

In Academies 16,746 

In Colleges 769 

Persons over twenty who cannot read or write . . . 4,448 
Slaves NOKE. 

SLAVE SOIL. — SOUTH CAROLINA. 

Has Territorv 25,000 sq. m. 

Population in 1845 600,000 

Products in do $53,086,765 

Production to each Individual $88 

Cost of State Government, 1844 $347,831 

Members of Congress 7 

Scholars in Common Schools 12,520 

In Academies 4,326 

In Colleges 168 

Whites over twenty who cannot read or write . . 20,615 
Slaves not permitted to read or write 330,000 

Still more striliing does this contrast become if we com- 
pare Kentucky and Ohio, — sister States alike in soil and 
climate, and divided only by a river, but as dissimilar in en- 
terprise and prosperity as can be imagined. No powers of 
argument can reason down facts like these; and already is 
their influence at work in Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, 
and perhaps other States. Conciliation, as well as firmness, 
is now demanded on the part of the North, —firmness in an 
opposition to the extension of slavery, but a generous and 
conciliatory spirit in devising a method of relief for the 
States now involved in it. 



26 PLAN FOR A 

power. As these elements of greatness 
increase among the free States, what, in all 
probability, will be the future destiny of 
these Border States?'' 

'^ I w^ish not to excite an angry feeling, 
or to wound the self-love of any one ; my 
object is peace : but if the people of these 
States would calmly hear what may be said, 
and coolly judge of what they hear, we 
should all, in time, come to the same con- 
clusion. Suppose this conclusion arrived 
at : then Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky 
would unite in applying to Congress for 
the very compromise which the petition 
offers. They would say, ' We have long 
borne the burden of slavery, and now wish 
to get rid of it. We cannot do so without 
3^our assistance. We may, it is true, sell a 
part of our property in South Carolina and 
other States, where the soil, from its nature, 
and the climate, from its unhealthiness. 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 27 

can only be inhabited by the African ; but 
we have been at a great expense in rearing 
the infant to the child, and in feeding the 
old man in his age. You must, therefore, 
grant us something as an equivalent ; and 
we will meet in the spirit of compromise, 
to root from our land an acknowledged evil. 
Put us, we pray you, in a position to reap 
the full advantages offered to us by Heaven 
in a healthy climate and a rich soil, and to 
this end purchase and make free the female 
infants of our slaves, and we will abolish 
hereditary slavery for ever. Every child 
born after shall be born free.' " 

" Nor is the supposition of such a union 
of opinion by any means chimerical. It is 
obviously for the interest of these three 
States to range themselves on the side of 
freedom ; and, if they should do so, the re- 
sult is certain." 

''As events ripen, it is evident that no 



28 PLAN FOR A 

time should be lost in devising some con- 
ciliatory measure of compromise. The 
great question of slavery, though in a mo- 
dified form, has already been brought be- 
fore Congress, never again to quit it until 
slavery ceases. The power and number of 
those who seek its extinction are daily on 
the increase, and the chances of compen- 
sation for slaves will yearly grow less : 
after , in my opinion, none can be ob- 
tained. The matter must then assume a 
more serious aspect, and the Border States 
will doubly suffer." 

" In a letter to a friend,"^ who, in a series 
of numbers recently published in the ' Bos- 
ton Courier,' has so fully demonstrated the 
value of the plan of emancipation I sug- 
gested, and who has touched the subject 

* Henry Lee, Esq , of Brookline, formerly candidate of 
South Carolina for the Vice- Presidency of the United 
States. 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 29 

with a master's hand, I frankly stated my 
fears ; and, in giving them also to you, I 
trust they will be received as they were 
uttered, — ' more in sorrow than in an- 
ger.' " 

'* It seems to me that we are slowly but 
steadily advancing to that dreadful crisis 
which has been so long predicted. The 
events of the next ten years will probably 
decide the question of the continuance of 
South Carolina and some other of the Slave 
States as a part of the confederacy ; for, by 
that time, the North will demonstrate a de- 
termined force against slave dictation. The 
balance of power under the compromise of 
the Constitution is gone ; the Constitution 
itself is invaded and broken ; and new ele- 
ments are introduced into it, which are too 
injflammable in their nature not to consume 
it." 

" The right of slave representation, ori- 



30 PLAN FOR A 

ginally limited in fact, if not by name, to 
five out of thirteen States, is soon to be 
extended over conquered territories and 
foreign nations of more than half a conti- 
nent. The indolent and ignorant slaveman, 
without education or industry, is hereafter, 
by means of a three-fifth vote, to guide the 
destinies of this mighty empire." 

'^ Had a firm resistance been shown to 
the admission of Texas, while demanding a 
slave representation (I do not say a slave 
population, — that is another branch of the 
question, — but a slave representation), 
there is little doubt that the war with Mex- 
ico would have been avoided. What is now 
to prevent a slave representation from 
being indefinitely extended ? what to pre- 
vent the farmer and mechanic of the North 
from being ruled and governed by the 
slaves of the South? Nothing but a stern 
and unbending will, followed out by action, 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. ol 

to maintain the principles of the Constitu- 
tion. Mutual concession and compromise 
may do much ; but can they be brought to 
bear, except under pressure of necessity, 
and to save the Union ? " 

^^ Events are tending to this issue, and 
sooner or later the struggle will come. It 
is impossible that three-fourths of the talent, 
the wealth, and the industry of the country 
can always quietly submit to have their pe- 
titions and counsels rejected, and their best 
interests and their own peculiar institu- 
tions continually sacrificed at the will and 
pleasure of the feudal bondage-power of 
slavemen. We had better meet the evil, 
however great, or in whatever form it may 
approach us." 

" I do not fear a dissolution of the Union. 
The worst that can happen is a temporary 
secession, from the confederation, of certain 
of the Slave States, which may perhaps 



6% PLAN FOR A 

quit us for a time, and attempt to form an 
independent government. Let them try 
the experiment. In five years from their 
separation, they would be completely at 
our mercy, and petition for re-annexation 
on our own terms. They cannot exist 
without us ; yet being with us, and of little 
comparative value in the statistics of power 
and the elements of greatness, they govern 
us at their own caprice." 

" We are, in fact, in a false position. We 
have yielded up the compromise of five 
Slave States to eight Free States, — the 
spirit of the compact of the Constitution, — 
and permitted a gross encroachment of the 
slavemen upon the degree of power we 
originally conceded. But notwithstanding 
these facts, and the feelings they naturally 
engender, I am anxious still to offer to them 
the plan for emancipation which you have 
been kind enough publicly to notice. It 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 33 

was conceived in good-will and friendship 
to the South, and offered in the spirit of 
mutual concession, to avert an impending 
evil, and restore harmony to the Union." 

" No one understands better than your- 
self, whose experience extends beyond the 
era of the Constitution, that the present 
state of hostility between the North and 
South has mainly been brought about by a 
British policy, and the radical sentiments 
uttered by the feudal chiefs of South Caro- 
lina and other Slave States, and thrown by 
them as firebrands among us, to light the 
flames of riot, and spread abroad the em- 
bers of disunion. They have been success- 
ful, and we have retreated before them." 

'^ Their huzzas for liberty to all, and 
equality for each, have been taken by us 
literally; and we hasten to shout them back 
in earnest. Men north of Washington can- 
not comprehend why the doctrine should not 



34 PL AX FOR A 

be good south of it ; and what the slaveman 
has preached, the freeman is now deter- 
mined to practise." 

'' Had the educated and intelligent of the 
South, instead of rushing to their ruin in a 
vain struggle for personal power, been 
willing to have remained friends with the 
same class of the North, and jointly labored 
with them in the construction and mainte- 
nance of a government of laws founded 
upon reasonable and liberal principles, and 
unitedly opposed the intrigues and manage- 
ment of vicious and needy men, who have 
nothing to lose and every thing to gain, 
how much more happy would have been 
our country, and how many bitter feelings 
would have been spared to her best and 
bravest ! 

Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat." 



Z^7 

GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 35 

The annexed article, from the editor of 
the "New-York Chronicle" of Aug. 15, 1857, 
may be perused with profit : — 

We gave an account, in a late number, of 
the movement to free the country of sla- 
very by paying to the masters the price of 
their slaves out of the proceeds of the pub- 
lic lands. The feasibility of such a scheme, 
in the midst of so many passions and con- 
flicting interests, we regard as extremely 
doubtful. It certainly cannot be consum- 
mated without an amount of agitation of 
which it is impossible at present to con- 
ceive. It is well, however, that it is in the 
hearts of any to attempt it ; and we wish 
well to the meeting which is to convene at 
Cleveland, 0., to discuss the subject. 

It is, perhaps, a favorable omen that this 
scheme is by no means a new one. It was 
broached some years ago by Hon. David 



36 



PLAN FOR A 



Sears, of Boston. Mr. Sears addressed a 
letter at the time to John Quincy Adams ; 
issued documents on the subject from the 
press ; and considerable attention was ex- 
cited to it by these means. 

The plan was summarily this : " To pur- 
chase and emancipate slaves, being female 
children born prior to 1850; and to make 
annual appropriations by law for the pur- 
pose, on a pledge of the public lands, with 
a declaratory act, that, from and after 1850, 
there shall be no hereditary slavery, but 
that, on and after that date, every child 
born within the United States of America, 
their jurisdiction and territories, shall be 
free." Mr. Sears estimated the number of 
female slaves to be purchased, under ten 
years of age, at 420,000 ; and between the 
ages of ten and twenty, at 390,000 : one or 
both of w^hich might be purchased. As 
their children would be born in freedom, it 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 37 

would require but a generation or two to 
insure the extinction of slavery from the 
country. This purchase would be made 
with less cost than our last war with Eng- 
land, or for less than that of our war with 
Mexico. 

Mr. Sears would intrust the carrying-out 
of the plan to commissioners especially 
appointed for the purpose, who should be 
empowered to appropriate the proceeds of 
the public lands to the object, to negotiate 
with the legislatures of the Slave States for 
the purchase of the female slaves, and to 
close a contract with any one of said States 
which might agree to accept the terms of 
their commission ; the money to be paid to 
the States, and to be by them appropriated. 
The slaves so purchased, and their offspring, 
should be free ; and the children born after 
a certain date should be declared free. 

Mr. Sears's plan is based on this radical 



38 PLAN FOR A 

idea of acknowledging a pro-tempore riglit 
to property in slaves, but denies the right to 
hold a race in bondage through all future 
time. To avoid the evil of unqualified 
liberty in the hands of an ignorant, debased 
people, he would have the children of these 
emancipated females apprenticed to their 
owners or others till they were twenty-one 
years of age, on the promise that they 
receive from their masters a suitable edu- 
cation to fit them for their improved condi- 
tion. 

As we said before, we fear that the 
passions enlisted forbid the hope of a 
calm, impartial consideration of any plan 
whatever. Excited men and terrified 
horses are alike : they dash ahead, till 
their course ends in ruin and revolution. 
They will not stop calmly to estimate the 
tendencies of things, and to provide a 
safety-valve for the escape of the element 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 39 

which is driving them to destruction. 
Party, prejudice, and passion apart, and 
what wisdom, what safety, what justice, 
would all see in some such plan as this ! It 
would make all parts of the country mutual 
burden-bearers in disposing of an evil which 
all have been, directly or indirectly, con- 
cerned in introducing. It would indemnify 
those who have been encouraged by our 
laws to invest their property in slaves 
against loss. It would secure society at 
the South against the dreaded evils of in- 
stantaneous emancipation, and give both 
the dominant and the servile race time to 
adjust themselves to this new condition of 
domestic freedom. It Avould immediately 
open the floodgates of the South to the in- 
flux of free laborers to cultivate their rich 
soil; to work their mines; to occupy their 
waterfalls with machinery, villages, and po- 
pulation ; to construct railroads on a scale 



40 PLAN FOR A 

comraensurate with what they are at the 
North ; and to enable them to vie with us in 
the glorious competition for pre-eminence 
in subduing the land which God has given 
us, and extending to all the races of men 
that boon of liberty which is the pride and 
the boast of our country. 

Nothing but the prospect of indefinite 
bondage south of Mason and Dixon's line, 
and the consequent disrepute in which la- 
bor is held, restrains the emigrant masses 
from Europe and the Eastern States from 
making that their home, that the theatre 
for expending their capital, and that the 
seat of their enterprise, thrift, and popula- 
tion. But for this single cause, Kentucky 
might be as populous as Ohio, Virginia as 
Pennsylvania, and Norfolk might vie with 
New York in commerce and opulence. The 
Transatlantic Ferry about to be established 
at the South, would, in that case, enjoy the 



GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 41 

patronage of those crossing the ocean, now 
so exclusively extended to Northern lines 
of steamers. 



The law of compensation for slaves libe- 
rated may be based, according to circum- 
stances and with proper accountability, on 
the following general principles ; viz. : — 

Bonds of the United States, of $500 and 
upwards, are to be issued, on which inte- 
rest at six per cent is to be allowed until 
the original sum is doubled ; from and after 
which, and on presentation and cancellation 
of the original bond, a new certificate shall 
be issued in accordance with the sum can- 
celled. 

These second bonds are to be paid off as 
follows ; viz. : — 

At the end of the first six months, three 
per cent of interest and one per cent of 



42 GRADUAL EMANCIPATION. 

capital is to be paid, to make up the sum 
of four per cent on the bond ; and^ at the 
end of each succeeding six months, three 
per cent of interest on the unpaid capital, 
and a sufficient sum from the remaining 
capital, is to be paid, to make up another 
sum of four per cent on the bond : and this 
process is to be continued until the whole 
sum, principal and interest, is paid. 

The above stock pays eight per cent per 
annum to the holder until the whole debt 
is liquidated, and is similar to the old 
six per cent deferred debt of the United 
States. 

In the hope that the suggestions here 
made may not be entirely without use in 
your discussions on this difficult subject, 
I have the honor to remain your humble 
servant, 

DAVID SEARS. 

Hon. Henry Wilson, 

Senate of the United States. 



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